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"Necessity taught me the very fine art of bootstrapping," Uber founder Travis Kalanick writes. "Blood, Sweat and RAMEN", is how he described it.

I see lots of entrepreneurs who don't understand this mantra. They believe, apparently, in the good 'start up fairy' which comes down and helps them solve all their problems with the wave of a wand. And they think that their potential investors have the same powers--banish competitors, make customers sign up, deal with difficult employees, etc., etc. They wish...and I wish...but no go.

In the end, it is hard work that gets it all done. Hard work that is mixed with a big dose of passion, a feeling that you can develop that world-class service (like Uber) that is going to revolutionize an industry, a spirit that cannot be dampened by short-term failures are all the characteristics I look for in an entrepreneur.

I don't like to see the drag of a messy social life, distractions around holding another job, problems with co-founders, or the myriad of other issues that can draw energy away from the entrepreneur. Like Travis, I prefer people who I have to convince to come out of their basement apartment, joined an incubator (Thanks, Matt, of Placester, for believing me!), networked like crazy among the investor community and successfully raised millions in multiple rounds of funding--all with my encouragement and help, but not active, daily involvement. That's an entrepreneur...

It's tough being an entrepreneur and most will fail at it. Those that stick to the program have huge rewards awaiting them--not just monetary, but the satisfaction of building something that advances society.

So take some time to congratulate that entrepreneur in your life--a kid, friend, head of one of your portfolio companies--they deserve the love for all the blood and sweat and RAMEN (consumed).

Trust in others often goes against the basic principles of being a founder, especially a single one. You have the idea, you work hard on developing a business model, crafting a basic solution, sell a few customers on the product. And then what...you realize that you can't do it all yourself and you need to bring people on the team.

Trusting your newly hired professionals does not come easy, and the primary urge is to nerd patrol their work, probably until they tell you to leave them alone, or quit. Here's a few ideas on how to build trust in your team:

Start slowly--I've seen both extremes: founders giving new hires a complete free reign to do what they think is best and founders who want to approve going to the bathroom. Start small if you are not comfortable with delegating authority and give specific tasks/deadlines for a few moths until you are comfortable that they know what they are doing.

Ask; don't tell--avoid delineating tasks right away. Ask the new hire what they think they should do (after all, you hired an expert in their field, right?) and go with the flow, making small course corrections as necessary.

Respect disagreement--often, founders do not like their baby to be called ugly. But it may be. Take a deep breath and listen to what your employee is saying. It's probably true...

The most successful people have learned the simple lesson of making it in business--hiring people that are smarter than you, giving them the responsibility and resources to succeed and holding them to their agreed-upon goals.

To finish, check out this neat video on trust by Fred Wilson and Jerry Colonna.

According to Fortune, Onshape, a computer-aided design (CAD) software startup from Cambridge, Massachusetts, has raised a total of $64 million in funding from New Enterprise Associates, North Bridge Venture Partners, and Commonwealth Capital. The funding values the company, which has operated stealthily for the past three years, at $295 million, including the funding. (This total funding amount includes $34 million in funding first reported by the Boston Globe in 2013.)

On Monday, Onshape will announce the launch of its beta program, where it will disclose further details on its product as well as its unique pricing scheme and business model. The company, previously known as Belmont Technology, has been operating under non-disclosure agreement with more than 1,000 users, some of which are already paying customers.

The company's basic premise: CAD software, which is a $8 billion to $9 billion industry, has been slow to adapt to modern methods of 3D design. Existing solutions make it difficult for workers to collaborate, as they're not cloud-based or compatible with mobile. (Some have offered such services, but none are pure-plays.) "The CAD market hasn't changed. The way people design and build products has changed," says according to co-founder founder and chairman Jon Hirschtick. "It's like the land that time forgot."

Onshape's goal is to modernize CAD software. "The vision of the company is that everyone on the design team is able to use CAD together, on any computing device, anywhere," Hirschtick says.

He would know what the market needs. He co-founded one of the largest CAD software companies, Solidworks. In 1997, SolidWorks sold to Dassault Systemes for $318 million, and Hirschtick stayed on board for the next 14 years in various roles. Under his leadership, SolidWorks grew to a $100 million revenue company. The next CEO, John McEleney, grew it to $400 million in revenue. McEleney plans to repeat that success at Onshape as its CEO.

The pedigree of Onshape's executive team is the reason the startup has commanded a nine-figure valuation before even launching. In addition to Hirschtick and McEleney, Onshape's management includes Dave Corcoran, Scott Harris, Michael Lauer and Ilya Mirman, all of whom are ex-Solidworks executives. DevOps leader John Rousseau was a founding engineer at cloud software maker CloudWorks, and Dan Shore, Onshape's CFO, previously worked as Harvard University's CFO. Onshape employs a staff of 60.

The team brings big ambitions to a potentially huge opportunity. "It's a big project," Hirschtick says. "It's not going to get knocked off by 20 different groups of two college students."

Mark Mason wrote an interesting piece recently on the disconnected professional. It was an admission that, although he dutifully collected people in his network, he realized that he was really not networking. It's worth a read and I'd like to offer a few more thoughts on why networking is important.

Full disclosure--I am not the world's best networker. In my group, that honor belonged to Bill Copacino, a dear departed friend who never missed the chance to meaningfully connect, and not just to get something from the person. Bill was genuinely interested in people, their aspirations and their challenges. May he rest in peace...

But I digress. Here are the few more thoughts:

Don't live on a one-way networking street--remember that person that always calls you but you never call him or her? You need to take the initiative and do outbound calling. Today, to start the New Year, I pinged about 10 people in my network that I have been meaning to contact...a New Years resolution.

Make an effort to meet important people in your industry--well, duh, of course, but do you actually do it? You will be surprised how many will be interested in speaking, especially if you have something meaningful to talk about with them. Too often, I hear people say that a person would never speak with them. Wrong...especially if you never tried..

Don't be a LinkedIn connections addict--I have turned down or ignored at least 2000 people wanting to connect with me on LinkedIn. Why? I don't know them and am not interested in having a big network that I cannot stay in touch with.

Do post on LinkedIn--I send out three or so posts a day, with interesting articles that pertain to people in my network. Why? I enjoy reading the articles myself, so perhaps my network will as well. It's an easy way to stay in touch, people often comment, or get back to me and we have a conversation.

Finally, look up from that smartphone--I've attended a few industry conferences this year. Everyone walks around glued to their smartphone and not making eye contact. Look up! Perhaps you could actually meet some people who could help your company or career.